Challenging Gender Stereotypes or “Why Loulou wears boy-ish clothes”

Loulou has a friend, V., the adventures of whom you can read here. He is Loulou’s friend for two basic reasons: one, I am friends with his mom and two, she gets all his clothes that don’t fit any more. It might not sound like a true friendship, but I think they will get there eventually.

Loulou has been wearing many of V.’s clothes since she was born. Many of his clothes are considered “unisex”. However, he also has some really “boyish” ones as well. Loulou wore them all the same. You might think that we dress our little princess with boyish stuff just because they happen to be available. This is not the whole truth though.

One could also assume that we dress her with boyish stuff, because that’s how my parents dressed me. I don’t know. Maybe subconsciously that has something to do with it. My parents, however, dressed me with boy clothes because I had no hair whatsoever and I looked ridiculous with dresses, instead of cute. I kind of looked like a bald blob, to be honest. Loulou does have hair and she could look girly. In fact, she looks pretty awesome with her summer dresses or the one that her grandmother got her for Christmas.

You could even think that we dress her with manly sweaters because they look like tiny grown-up clothes, while the clothes in the baby girl section are too baby-ish (sorry for the excessive word invention). That is also a reason. But not the main one.

And one could also think that we go for all the hues of blue, just because they match her eyes oh-so-well. And that is also part of the truth.

The main reason, however, that I enjoy dressing Loulou with boy clothes, is the fact that I don’t think there should be “girl” clothes and “boy” clothes. I find it ridiculous. There is no functional need for that. It’s not like little girls need support for their breasts or that little boys need underwear that allow them to pee without pulling their pants down. Therefore, in my humble opinion, there should just be “young people clothes” or just “baby clothes” and that should be it.

Plus, I totally enjoy the confused look on people’s faces, when they refer to Loulou as he and then they discover (usually on their own, because I don’t bother to correct me), that she is a girl.

Even though Loulou is way too young to understand how dear gender equality is to her mom, I hope that by offering her the whole palette of clothing and toy options, it will be easier later on to explain to her the rainbow that gender is and the fact that ALL-THE-OPTIONS should be available to ALL-THE-PEOPLE.

What do you think? Would you consider dressing your girl with “boy” clothes? Would you allow your boy to paint his nails, like you do, if he asked you? Looking forward to picking your brains!

My mom used to dress me in girly girl dresses until I was 18 months old and we went to visit her parents in Alaska. There was a lot of MUD. So she borrowed some boy clothes for me and that was it. She had a hard time getting me in skirts and dresses after that. Ha ha!

Enjoyed your post Alexia. I looked forward to dressing Jessie in little girlish things and when Nathan was young they did not have the cool little boy clothes they do now. Still I appreciate your views on it. I think children were one of God’s best ideas.